The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 10,412 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 51% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 46% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.5 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 62
Highest review score: 100 Badlands
Lowest review score: 0 A Life Less Ordinary
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5,570 out of 10412
  2. Mixed: 3,735 out of 10412
  3. Negative: 1,107 out of 10412
10412 movie reviews
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  1. The Grudge
    Less a film than a terror delivery system, The Grudge repeatedly shows off Shimizu's technical chops, but never gives viewers a reason to care about or identify with the victims.
  2. Surviving Christmas
    Affleck's psychotic enthusiasm aside, no one seems to be having a good time, and the ill will becomes infectious.
  3. Sex Is Comedy
    When she (Breillat) succeeds, as she does in "Fat Girl" and in the final minutes of Sex Is Comedy, the impact can be overwhelming for filmmaker and audience alike.
  4. P.S.
    While not dwelling on plot eventually gets P.S. in trouble during the slack finale, it gives Linney and Grace plenty of room to maneuver.
  5. The Final Cut
    Naim directs The Final Cut as if it were the pilot to a TV series: He teases the audience with all sorts of story threads, focuses on a minor self-contained mystery, and leaves the rest for future episodes that will never come.
  6. Moolaadé
    Though Moolaadé doesn't shy away from the task of educating its viewers about the brutality of "purification," it works equally well as a tribute to righteous defiance wherever it surfaces.
  7. Being Julia
    It looks handsome but seems infected by the idea of playing different roles; a comedy in one scene, it adopts a mood of a high seriousness the next and clutters the stage with minor characters that contribute little. In the end, this inability to make up its mind does the film in.
  8. Saints and Soldiers
    Too often, Saints And Soldiers confuses bravery for faith.
  9. Shall We Dance
    Chelsom has transformed a low-key charmer into an overblown shtick-com whose idea of restraint only extends to forgoing wacky sound effects, a laugh track, and amplified rim-shots every time a character delivers a wisecrack.
  10. Team America: World Police
    Years from now, Team America will better convey the political character of 2004 than a stack of Time magazines. Staying funny helps even more.
  11. The Scandal
    Sumptuously photographed in bright primary colors, with equally immaculate period clothing and design, Untold Scandal lacks some of the emotional and thematic depth of previous adaptations, but it has the refreshing candor and explicitness that marks the current wave of Korean cinema.
  12. Vera Drake
    The issue may be polarizing, but Vera Drake resonates with such seriousness and truth that it transcends the narrow limitations of polemic.
  13. Around the Bend
    There are good ideas in Around The Bend, but they're presented in outline form, as the bare, dry bones of what could have been a living body.
  14. Vodka Lemon
    A dark-humored film about devastation, which makes Vodka Lemon's final rush into comedy in the truest sense all the more refreshing. Even in the wasteland, there might be humor other than the gallows kind.
  15. Go Further
    Like much of Mann's work, it's an unabashed love letter to the counterculture. But this time out, Mann has made an unintentionally vicious satire of the fuzzyheaded self-intoxication and impracticality of the progressive left, a film that's far more scathing than anything Tom Wolfe could dream up.
  16. Silent Water
    Converts relevant contemporary history into intimate personal drama.
  17. Stage Beauty
    As historical speculation, it's clever enough. As a film, it glows with flop-sweat.
  18. Friday Night Lights
    When Friday Night Lights gets to the big games, the time it's spent creates an atmosphere thick with tension, one akin to the real-world experience of watching a favorite team play for its life.
  19. Primer
    A brainteaser of the first order, Primer ranks among the best of recent thrillers such as "Memento" or "The Matrix," which rupture the fabric of reality and radically destabilize the narrative in kind.
  20. Raise Your Voice
    Dreadful.
  21. Tarnation
    Caouette's shattering Tarnation represents a landmark in personal filmmaking: It finally realizes the digital dream of a raw, unsanctioned glimpse into the soul.
  22. Taxi
    Feels stitched together from bits and pieces of lame '80s buddy-cop movies.
  23. Tying the Knot
    Tying The Knot's central point remains insistently stated. It would be hard for anyone to watch it and still think of the demand for same-sex marriage as a mere passing fancy.
  24. Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry
    When it steers away from campaign-ad testimonials and considers Kerry's moral awakening in Vietnam and beyond, Going Upriver features some tremendously powerful scenes.
  25. Dig!
    By giving Taylor the last word, Dig! becomes little more than a self-serving, unconvincing infomercial for a musician who comes across as functional and bearable only when compared to his counterpart.
  26. Shark Tale
    Every single joke, character detail, music montage, and pop-culture reference looks extensively market-tested, whether via screenings, focus groups, or other box-office successes.
  27. I Heart Huckabees
    One of the boldest, most audacious American movies of the last 25 years, a freewheeling cerebral carnival of energy and ideas, if not always coherence or cohesion.
  28. Ladder 49
    In a shrill attempt to overcompensate for the film's shortcomings, William Ross' hyperbolic score does the audience's work for it, cheering heroism, guffawing during lighthearted moments, and getting all misty-eyed during the tender and tragic scenes.
  29. The Yes Men
    The Yes Men's brilliant lies unlock explosive satirical truths, but the film runs out of steam a bit toward the end.
  30. Moog
    Short and shapeless but nonetheless welcome documentary.
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